


Back To Briseis

by chanheeslatte



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chanhee is a baby, F/M, I Don't Even Know, I ship younghoon and chanhee so much why did i add a female character wtf, I'm Sorry, Kevin is my bff donut come at me, Light Angst, MUST PROTECC, More like relationships oops, Pls give me feedback, Protect chanhee, Why Did I Write This?, cheating?????, pls don't hate me, relationship, stan the boyz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 18:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanheeslatte/pseuds/chanheeslatte
Summary: A boy fighting against a darkness that can't be defeated.A girl living a life she never expected to live.An impure love that is not worth of its name.OrJust a chapter from a book I'll never finish to write.





	Back To Briseis

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to have multiple chapters, but, uh, I suck. I enormously suck.
> 
> Stan the boyz and alec benjamin !!!!!!!

** _year 20_ ** ** _23_ ** ** _, winter._ **

The clock hanging on the living room wall hits midnight.   
I look at it carefully before shifting my gaze on the watch on my wrist: _five more minutes, _I tell myself. _Five more minutes and, then, I'll go to check on Chanhee. Just five more minutes._

The couch is way more uncomfortable than before, now that I lifted my head to check the time. 

  
«_As always_.» I whisper, low, my hands on the closed book I never decided to read.

  
_Five minutes. _

I sigh.

At the end of the day, they're the toughest.   
Those five minutes taste like nothing at all and taste like everything at the same time.  
When you bring them closer to your lips, slowly, you almost fear whatever might happen. When you put them on your tongue, with a barely abstract movement of your fingers, their sour flavor taints that little bit of pure you thought you owned. 

  
_They're the Devil's five minutes and __I__ can't escape them. _

I look around.

It's dark in here.  
Like every other day, like every other night, I didn't turn on the light. I became so used to the dark these past few months that it feels like I don't need anything else to survive the world. Darkness, loneliness and five minutes to live as if nothing is real.

_Five, four, three._

Chanhee was the one who taught me to turn the clock back.  
_"__You will always be five minutes behind everything else. You will be able to live those five minutes as you desire."_

At first, I believed him.  
I always looked at him ー from behind, from the side, from below ー smiling happily at the sight of his sparkly eyes, as if everlasting happiness depended on the contemplation of a human creature, and thought I was so lucky to have someone like him by my side. _Because there was nobody else like Chanhee out there. _  
He was my person, my favourite among all the others.   
I believed every damn thing, as long as it came from him.

_Oh, Choi Chanhee._

«Chanhee, Chanhee, Chanhee.» I breathe out.

How did we end up like this?

_Two, one, zero._

Five minutes passed so fast, as if a rampaging wind sweeped them away.  
They caressed me like the sea breeze but I went rogue and, once again, I didn't live them as I was supposed to.

_They're five minutes of you, Eunseo._  
_Five minutes where you can forget about everything else and only think about yourself. _  
_Don't you think this is something wonderful? Don't you think these five minutes are worth more than an entire life?_

Five minutes a day to forget whatever surrounds us.   
Five minutes a day to explore unknown worlds, to make friends with water and air, and then go back to fight against fire with more enthusiasm and less fear. _Less dread of being burned to death._

But I, once again, did not.  
I did not depart from this life and never got the chance to wander around undiscovered ー perhaps fictitious ー lands, to talk to fishes in the sea and birds in the sky.   
I didn't live my five minutes and reality is still the same.

_But what if _ _I_ _ can't manage to reach my own world? What if all I can think of is you, Chanhee? _

Every thought of mine is stressing me out.  
_Chanhee, Chanhee and Chanhee. _  
Always Chanhee.   
Always him and his sad eyes, his odd words, his everything.

I'm way too scared of losing him, even if I know it is wrong from me.   
I'm just way too scared Fate is going to take him away from me and that he will disappear once he finds his Promised Land. The diverse and complex World he dreams about every time he lies in bed.

_What if he never comes back?_

I slowly get up from the sofa, eyes on the open door of the living room, waiting for the light of Chanhee's bedroom to illuminate the path I'm about to follow.  
I need to check on him before leaving this apartment, because that's what I decided to do when all of this started. How I'd like to turn back time and never choose between having to deal with my entire life or having to live just half of it as my own, leaving the rest to him.

I wait for some minutes more but nothing happens.  
Darkness remains as darkness.   
I can't seem to breath properly.

The clock hits the ground.

* * *

  
_**year 2016, 12th grade, spring. **_

Chanhee was sitting on the window sill of our classroom, looking at something only him could see. It seemed like he was looking at a precise location, as if he was waiting for a call, a gesture from someone.

From time to time, I found myself losing track of what Kevin ー the best friend everyone could have asked for ー was saying and shifted my gaze to the one boy that was supposed to be one of the fellow _buddies_ my boyfriend loved to talk about.   
I didn't know why, but I kept on looking at him and the more I did the more I started to think he was significantly different from everyone I ever met. 

He was just like a painting, if seen from the right distance.

_Who knows what kind of thoughts he's lost in._

«Hey! Earth to Eunseo.   
Earth to Eunseo!» Kevin shook his right hand in front of my face. His voice was a bit louder than normal but still sweet and warm. When I turned to him, a wide smile was making his eyes light up. «Someone's here to see you!»

I blinked a few times and then followed the direction of the spot Kevin was pointing at.   
And, finally, there he was.

_Younghoon_, in all his majesty and his height, was leaning against the door frame and, a plastic bag in his right hand, was smiling brightly at me.   
For a brief moment, I almost felt bad. Guilty.   
He was always the one that came find me, the one that tried hard to make our relationship something special. And what about me? What was I exactly doing? Seated on the chair of a desk that was not mine, I kept on looking at a boy that was not him. One of his best friends, among other things. 

Even back then, I knew I didn't deserve someone like Younghoon by my side.

Throwing away whatever I was thinking about, I smiled back at him. «Wait for me!» I said, waving my hand in the air. I quickly got up, passing by the window Chanhee was still leaning against, to reach my desk ー in the first row ー and get the bread I bought that morning for Younghoon to eat. 

Once I got it, I came back to Kevin's desk to mess with his hair. It was something I always liked to do. At first it was because I knew how irritated by my gesture Kevin could become, but then he started to like it ー quiet a lot ー and I started to do it as a cute thing that made us look closer. «Bye, Keb! I'll see you later, hmm?»

«Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Now go. Don't make your _Romeo_ wait. You know how clingy he can become.» He removed my hand from his head and pointed at Younghoon who, up until that moment, didn't let any word come out of his mouth. 

I laughed a little at his remark. 

With that, I left. Before I could reach the door, however, a thin and slender hand grabbed my wrist.  
Supposing it was Kevin, I turned around and rolled my eyes.

«Listen, _boy-_-»

_«Do not look at me when you already have someone to look after. Do not look at me, otherwise... Otherwise my heart rate won't last long.»_

Chanhee's words left a huge impact on me, my feelings and whatever else a human being is made of. 

When he let go and I could, finally, take my boyfriend's hand in mine, Younghoon asked me what that was about. I shrugged it off and said it was _"nothing"_.

_But was it really? _

* * *

  
_Perhaps that's how our story has begun_, I tell myself.

I hate to rethink about the past and whatever happened next.   
I really hate it, because I know I'm doing something wrong ー something even me, myself can't stand ー but I can't seem to stop all of this.  
And, when time seems to go back, I realise that everything sucks. That _I suck_.

Taking baby steps I walk through the hallway, towards Chanhee's bedroom, expecting him to be asleep or whatever else can be done with the lights off.   
I can't deny I'm slightly trembling: it is rare for his room to remain dark after midnight.  
But I don't want to think too much about it and keep on walking straight ahead, then left.

When I reach the door frame, I swallow some saliva I didn't notice I was holding back and breathe heavily.

«Chanhee...» I say in a little voice. «Chanhee, it's midnight.»

He definitely knows what time it is. Probably even better than me. Why did I feel like pointing it out to him?

I'd like to turn on the light, because everything I can see is only an incisive darkness that is trying to penetrate my bones, but I refrain from doing it.   
I don't dare to move as I please.   
_If I do, what will Chanhee think? What will Chanhee feel? If he switched off the lights it means he's okay with it. He's doing fine. Oh God, please tell me he's doing fine. Tell me he is at ease. Tell me whatever you want as long as it is not the _**_truth_**_._

My body suddenly begins to shiver as I step into the room.

Chanhee's bedroom is always to coldest in the entire apartment. I still don't know whether it is deliberate from him or just "like that". Like that and nothing more. With no specific reason, no effort on Chanhee's side in making it a freezing igloo.

«Chanhee...» I say low, once again.

I've never demanded an answer from him.  
God, I've never even expected one.  
Nonetheless, every day, I call for his name.   
I breathe it out, spelling out every syllable ー perhaps every letter ー and wish for something that will never come.   
I don't wait, _just wish._   
I wish for him to tell me something, to let me understand whatever is,or is not, on his mind.   
I wish for me to see the real Chanhee, one day: the one that does not hide himself behind a smile during the day and cries out all of his pain during the night.

Slowly I become accustomed to the pitch dark that surrounds me and manage to focus on Chanhee's shape.   
He is lying on his bed and has his back to me.  
_He's so skinny_, I find myself thinking.   
Every time I see him, every time I get myself near him, he looks like he lost weight.

I ask myself if he eats the meals I cook for him every day or if he still gives them (after we found out, Younghoon and I lectured him, trying not to be too sharp but failing to understand how he must have felt) to Ms. Park's son, the little Doyoon, who is eight years old and does not want to discuss with his mother about the reason why the life he lives in school is, for him, a monster with no face nor limbs, frightening like a ghost or a evil shadow.

I sigh.

_Maybe it's just an impression of mine._

I make my way to the double bed I know all too well, a low murmur that keeps on coming into my ears the more I move towards it.

«_Could you find a way to let me down slowly?_»

Chanhee's sweet voice makes me fall of a cliff of emotions that I know I can't control.

_«A little sympathy I hope you can show me.»_

He's always singing.   
Whether he is not feeling well, whether he's doing just fine, whether his voice is covered by his sobbing, whether he has no more voice to let out.  
He's always singing and I love each sound that comes out of his mouth.   
So sweet, so dense, so irreplaceable that I know I would miss it forever if he would decide to stop breathing.

_«If you wanna go then I'll be so lonely.»_

Oh, Chanhee. What can I do for you?

«**_You're here_**.»

He turns around slowly as if his body feels heavier than it actually is. He looks at me and I can't help but smile at the sight of his marvellous, sparkling eyes.

«Do you need anything?» I ask him. «A glass of water? Something to munch on? I made some apple pie if you--»

When I see him shaking his head as a sign of negation, I slightly nod. «Ok.» I say. «Ok. Uhm... Then, I'm gonna go. If you need anything feel free to call me, ok?»

Not waiting for his response, I turn back to exit the room, the apartment and leave this day behind. Mark it as _past_. Put it in the last drawer of my nightstand and never bring it back to the present.

I want to cry but am not sure about what.   
_God. Get your shit together. You know you are stronger than this. _

«Eunseo.» He calls my name, as I try to step out of the room. I block myself at the door frame not daring to turn around and look at him.

_Not now, Chanhee. Please._

«Can you spend the night here?»

I turn around.   
My heart is beating faster and faster.

Once again, I find myself nodding in silence as I walk towards the bed and Chanhee smiles sadly at me.

I don't even take off my clothes as I rest my head on his chest and listen to each one of his heartbeats.   
It is so quiet in here, now that our breaths are becoming one and our fingers are linked together.   
I needed this more than I actually expected to.

Our hearts are crying out for help, trying to find it in the twilight of a room that does not exist and exists only for us, as the moonlight does not shine on the wounds we keep on covering.

_Tonight, darkness hides all the tears and all the patches of a love that is meant to bleed._

«When will Younghoon come back?»

«Tomorrow.» I answer. «In the afternoon.»

And as Chanhee slowly falls asleep, I can't help but think about the time Younghoon will be back.   
He'll be home, and there will be smell of burned wood, of cooked eggs and of violet. _The combination of smells that, mixed, make the thought of a person. _

And I'll be there too, with him, on the couch we shared for years, laughing about some of the stories from his trip to Europe with Kevin.

And everything will be okay, everything will be just fine, because I love him and he means the world to me and I would do anything for him to be happy.

But why am I here? Lying on the bed of a man that is not him?

_Crying silently at the thought of leaving the boy next to me alone? _


End file.
